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Dominic Amos

Project aims

The aim of the WHEALBI project is to apply genomic, genetic and agronomic approaches to improve European wheat and barley production in competitive and sustainable cropping systems. These techniques will be used to characterise the diverse genetic resources available (including old cultivars, landraces and wild species) to provide a source of new alleles for:

crop improvement

addressing yield tolerance to abiotic stress

resistance to biotic stress

grain quality

adaptation to highly variable environmental conditions

This will be achieved in a number of ways including:

Next-generation sequencing of the wide genetic diversity in wheat and barley germplasm.

Evaluation of a range of life history and adaptive traits by both field experiments and a state-of-the-art precision phenotyping platform.

Development of pre-breeding tools and approaches to optimise the efficiency of allele transfer from unadapted germplasm into elite breeding lines.

Developing new ideotypes and crop management systems to reconcile productivity and environmental sustainability.

Making the research outputs directly applicable for breeders.

ORC's role

ORC will lead a task to identify wheat and barley ideotypes with enhanced performance under organic husbandry. We will work in close conjunction with NIAB, who will be conducting similar work under different tillage regimes.